R.I.P. HU Bee...or is it?

Recently revealed within his personal Tumblr blog post, Morgan Haro has announced the end of Hudson Soft's American branch Hudson Entertainment. The blog post was fueled with what could be interpreted as the most professional contempt for both the circumstances that surrounded the situation & for those who he felt were responsible for said circumstances. He has recently taken down the blog post but it details how felt the business practice of communication among Hudson Entertainment & Hudson Soft & the saturation of shallow releases or sequels referencing Deca Sports as an example. Konami has already owned part of Hudson as a subsidiary but as of the first of April will fully own Hudson Soft. Upcoming releases like Bonk: Brink of extinction hangs in the balance of what Konami decides is best after Hudson Soft's Big Boss Michihiro Ishizuka officially steps down & Konami initiates full control. Konami has already stated that they intend to implement the acquired assets & talent of Hudson Soft in their Social networking & mobile division, but the fate of the studio with it's 500 employee has yet to be announced.

Hudson Soft's origin goes as far back as 1973 when it was founded by the Brother's Kudo as family owned shop selling various electronics to slowly evolving into computer game products. Hudson Soft was the first Third-party company to release a game on once fledgling console the Nintendo Famicom along with it's other PC releases since '83 like NEC PC-8801 & the MSX. Hudson Soft USA was branched & had also established it's hit Franchises with Bomberman & Adventure Island on the NES which really stood out in the console's library of games for being bright & having a lot of charisma. The same passion & attitude towards vibrant visuals & charismatic presentation in Hudson's thematic game design would be carried over into the co-developed effort with NEC of the PC Engine also known as the Turbo-Grafx 16 here in the states. Hudson Soft really developed a fan following through the franchises it had & introduced like Bonk series, Dungeon Explorer, & Military Madness that substantiated several reasons to own a Turbo-Grafx but due to several other poor business decisions & flaws involved with it's North American release the life of the console was short lived but Hudson Soft continued on as a niche but revered third-party developer. Hudson has also been contracted for developing games for other companies like Nintendo for it's Mario Party series as it continued to introduce Bloody Roar & capitalize again on Bomberman & Star Soldier but has also pushed the publisher out of the quote on quote "hardcore" demographic & pushed the company more into the casual direction it's games headed toward with it's support towards the Wii & Wiiware.

Overall the significance of this has yet to be revealed as companies have been consolidated into others before like Square Enix purchasing Eidos & have continued business as usual or as another coincidental example how Square Enix has also owned Taito & all it's licenses & properties but has kept the Taito brand, what is not to say that Konami will not do the same for Hudson? I will be in quiet memoriam of one my most cherished properties within the industry but hold on to quiet hope that this major change may blossom into something similar to the way Clover Studios has morphed into Platinum games.